Fiat Still Pulls In Gold in This Town

Will the people of Turin ever emerge from under the shadow of Gianni Agnelli, patron of the dynasty that created the city’s seminal industry, Fiat, and the man who for generations ruled, unofficially, like a king?

Monday, Italy’s first gold medalist in the Turin Winter Olympics did his duty by paying respects to Agnelli, who died in 2003.

Less than 24 hours after winning the men’s singles luge competition, Armin Zoeggeler visited Agnelli’s grave, flanked by his coach and other Italian sports officials.

“I am honored to be here,” Zoeggeler said outside the Agnelli family mausoleum in the Villar Perosa cemetery. Zoeggeler’s visit to the grave of the “Avvocato,” or “the Attorney,” as Agnelli is still known, was headline news in Italy.

Zoeggeler was received by Agnelli’s grandson and heir, John Elkann, who serves as deputy chairman of the company. As the Games began last weekend, Elkann published a sentimental essay on how much his grandfather loved Turin and would have been so proud.

Giant automaker Fiat and the Agnellis essentially molded Turin after World War II and through most of the 20th century. But Fiat’s decline in the last couple of decades allowed the city to begin to diversify. Still, even after death, the figure of the Avvocato continues to demand homage.

-- Tracy Wilkinson

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U.S. snowboarder Andy Finch has been accompanied by nearly two dozen friends and relatives, some of whom live in Turin.

Asked if he had learned any Italian, Finch drew laughter from reporters when he replied, “I only learned one saying, ‘Bon Jovi,’ ” he said, in reference to the word “Buon giorno,” Italian for good day.

-- Pete Thomas

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Kazakhstan came to the Winter Olympics with few hopes of winning a medal, but the Kazakh athletes have already scooped one of the highest accolades in Italy.

Top fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana voted the Kazakhs the most stylish team to parade in the opening ceremony. “We would hire the athletes from Kazakhstan in a second, so stylish in their black coats and Borsalino hats, so Dolce & Gabbana,” the designers wrote in Italian daily La Stampa.

The French were the fanciest, although “a little too perfectly tailored.” The Russians looked “all Christmas in white jackets that somehow managed to make them look slimmer and taller,” and the Italians were, of course, “glamorous.”

So who were the losers?

“The Chinese wore the kitschiest, clad in long down jackets that made them look like sandwiches and even shorter than they already are,” Dolce & Gabbana wrote.

The Germans’ tangerine and lime outfits were dubbed an “overdose of vitamin C,” the Danes’ hats were likened to horrible “waffles” and the Americans’ “flabby berets ... looked like upside down underwear.”

-- Reuters